Jewish identity

I was raised by a Jewish mother and a Unitarian Universalist father.  I attended Hebrew School at Beth Jacob Synagogue in Montpelier Vermont, as well as Sunday School at the UU Church.

I'm 47 this year, and Jewish identity has never been an easy question for me.  I love Judaism, but I fled to the UUs pretty much permanently at sixteen when I heard a woman at the community seder (where, as the only girl between about 8 and 18 I was helping serve) say, "Isn't it nice that we have a kitchen shiksa to help with the seder?" and no one at her table so much as said a word to contradict her. 

I doubt anyone knew I could overhear through the hatch into the kitchen.  I was too embarrassed and ashamed to ever go back.  I never even told my mother what exactly happened, because I didn't want her to feel angry with her friends, since there were so few Jewish women in Montpelier.

When I was 18, I came to Boston.  I remember soon after I got here, a friend took me to her synagogue.  All the mamas flocked around.  "What do you do?"  "I'm a programmer." chatter chatter chatter "And what does your father do?"  "He's a Unitarian minister."  *poof*

That year, I fell in love.  In 1979, I married a conservative Jew in a conservative ceremony, and kept kosher for some years, avoiding any organized congregation when I could.  After he and I divorced, I kept my identity in my heart.

My ex and I remained friends.  I remarried as did he eventually.  When my son was born in 1993, I invited him to be my son's godfather. 

My mother and father had retired near our place in NC, and my mother was involved in the reform shul there.  The rabbi there asked me if I would raise my son exclusively in the covenant, despite his father not being Jewish.  I thought for a bit, and told him that I would raise him with the richness of all of his heritages, and ultimately I believed it was up to my son to decide when he was of an age to understand.

As a result, this rabbi not only refused to refer us to a mohel, but called all the mohels in the state and instructed them to talk to neither me, nor to my son's godfather.

That was the last straw, for me.  In my heart, I honor Judaism, but I felt that no community of Jews would ever treat me with acceptance.  As a child of a mixed marriage.  As a sort of mystical ecumenist.  As a third-generation non-zionist Jew.  As a person who avoided community, because community had so often hurt me.

This year, I'm pensive.  My son turned thirteen early this year.  Friends encourage me to visit some of the more liberal congregations, to check out the Jewish Renewal group in Watertown.  But the idea just makes me tired.

Jewish culture has been a vital part of my life.  My grandfather's incisive intellectualism, inherited through my mother's line.  Much of my wit.  Much of my brass.  Much of my compassion for the dispossessed and the disadvantaged.  Much of my passion for justice.  Much of this comes from my mother's side, much as I think I talk more about my father -- because, on my maternal heritage, there is a wounded place.

What is a Jew?  It is such an old question.  Jews come in every color, and so many flavors, today.  Certainly being Jewish is not about ethnicity.  There are so many denominations -- is it really about religion?  I know so many atheist and agnostic Jews.  Is it a culture?  Is it a way of looking at the world?  Is it a world of the heart?